Since the premiere of Star Wars: A New Hope, the Death Star has been the ultimate symbol of destructive power for fans. As Admiral Motti says, “this station is now the ultimate power in the universe.” However, Vader choked the man for his arrogant assumption... and as it turned out, Vader was right!

The explosion of Star Wars' popularity has led to an entire galaxy filled with novels, comics, video games, RPGs, and more. This has helped to expand the Star Wars universe, introducing us to new characters, new ships, and new threats to the galaxy. And as it turns out, some of those threats are a lot scarier than the Death Star ever was!

This is a galaxy filled with weapons that allow a single individual to destroy entire solar systems. Some of these weapons threaten literally all life in the galaxy. Some of them bring untold pain and destruction, and give the victims no way of knowing their death is coming until it is far too late.

Want to learn more about these weapons? Fortunately, you don't have to become a Jedi or Sith and try to read our minds. Just keep reading to learn all about 15 Star Wars Weapons Deadlier Than the Death Star!

Sun Crusher

The Death Star’s claim to fame was that it could destroy one planet at a time. The drawbacks were that it was large, not very maneuverable, and required an enormous crew to operate. Oh, and that whole thermal exhaust port vulnerability. In Kevin J. Anderson’s Jedi Academy books, he introduces a weapon that beats the Death Star on all these counts.

The Sun Crusher was a small vehicle, not much larger than a typical starfighter, and it could be operated by a single user. Despite its tiny size, its special Quantum-crystalline armor made it virtually indestructible.

What did it do? The ship carried special resonance torpedoes that made a star go supernova and wiped out all life in the system. It’s no wonder that the power of this tiny superweapon helped temporarily corrupt one of Luke’s students - Kyp Durron - to the Dark Side!

Starkiller

If you’re cataloguing weapons more powerful than the Death Star, then Starkiller Base has to make the cut. This is the superweapon first seen in Force Awakens, and it takes the Death Star concept to the next level. After all, the Death Star was confused for a moon, while the Starkiller functions as a whole planet!

What makes it so powerful? Its destructive beam is able to destroy every single planet in a single system, wiping out billions of lives in a stroke. Even scarier, the beam can travel large distances at great speed, meaning that the base does not have to orbit a planet or even enter a system to begin destroying things. If the Resistance Forces had not taken this base out, the First Order would have easily ruled the entire galaxy.

Star Forge

The Knights of the Old Republic game gave us a powerful glimpse of how Jedi can become corrupted. Darth Revan and Darth Malak both start out as noble Jedi who simply want to protect the Republic from Mandalorians. However, they become corrupted in deep space and return as Sith armed with one of the most powerful weapons of all time.

The Star Forge was a giant space station designed millennia ago by the Infinite Empire. It fed off both stars and The Force, and it was capable of creating pretty much any weapon, ship, or droid that anyone needed. This single station was responsible for creating the vast majority of Revan’s Sith fleet and it brought the Republic teetering to the edge of oblivion before the a combined force of Jedi and Republic warriors destroyed it.

Mass Shadow Generator

As far as weapons go, the Star Forge was relatively elegant. In the second Knights of the Old Republic game, we see a weapon that is much cruder. Nonetheless, it manages to top both the Star Forge and the Death Star in terms of its raw destructive ability.

The aforementioned war between the Jedi and the Mandalorians was not one that was destined to end quickly. However, that’s exactly what happened thanks to the Mass Shadow Generator. This was a weapon used by the Jedi Meetra Surik to generate a huge gravity vortex. The planet Malachor V was destroyed, but so were countless ships fighting on both sides of the war.

The immense loss of life helped end the Mandalorian war, but none of the survivors (including Meetra Surik) would ever be the same again.

World Devastators

One of the most famous Star Wars comic storylines was Dark Empire, the tale that pitted Jedi Master Luke Skywalker against a resurrected clone Palpatine. Obviously, the Emperor has a history with using superweapons, and this series did not disappoint by showing his newest invention: World Devastators!

The World Devastators did not destroy planets in a single go. Instead, fleets of them were deployed to destroy planets with their powerful tractor beams. They didn't waste the raw material, though;haha using it to create their own fleets of TIE Fighters controlled by artificial intelligence. This means that those seeking to stop a World Devastator attack must be able to attack Devastators all around the world, and each one is constantly creating new ships to defend itself. If Luke had not managed to transmit a shutdown code, these machines could have destroyed any planet in the galaxy.

Galaxy Gun

In the Dark Empire series, the Empire was not content to rely on World Devastators. Emperor Palpatine also developed a rather straightforward weapon that he gave a blunt name: “The Galaxy Gun.” True to its name, this was a weapon that allowed the Emperor to point across space to his enemies and bring instant death.

It wasn't a gun anyone could hold. Instead, it was a giant space station designed to fire customized missile - and each one has the ability to destroy a single planet. While the Galaxy Gun could move through both space and hyperspace, it didn't really need to, as the hyperspace-enabled missiles allowed the Emperor to wreak havoc from the comfort of his own home.

This superweapon wasn't easy to kill, either, as it took R2-D2 ramming a Super Star Destroyer into the gun to destroy it for good.

Sun Razer

In some ways, the Sun Razer shares qualities with the Star Forge. Both of these inventions are the superweapon equivalent of asking the genie for infinite wishes. In the case of the Sun Razer, it uses the immense power of the sun to produce an infinite number of superweapons.

This special superweapon is actually made of several machines that take position around a star and begin sucking its energy out. It then uses this immense energy to create any superweapons that a user may need. Furthermore, it speeds the development of such weapons, creating devices in less than a year that would otherwise take decades to create.

In many ways, this weapon is the ultimate testament to why the Jedi and the Republic can never fully turn their backs on the Sith.

Hammer Station

Most of the weapons on this list have been developed by the Empire, the Sith, or other organizations we typically consider “evil.” Hammer Station, though, represents the rare superweapon that has been created by the Old Republic. And part of what makes this weapon so impressive is how it manages to be completely simplistic and utterly lethal at the same time.

The Republic did not worry about firing massive lasers like the Death Star would eventually use. Instead, Hammer Station used a simple gravity cannon to fling asteroids at planets and ships. That's right: it only took a single asteroid to kill the dinosaurs here on planet Earth, and the Republic reasoned that there's plenty of asteroids in space. This gave anyone with access to the station an unlimited amount of “ammo” to cause extinction-level events wherever they want!

The Silencer

The Silencer was one of the superweapons that was cranked out by the Sun Razer. In terms of superweapons, it operates very similarly to the Death Star, using a powerful laser to devastate enemies of the Sith Empire. However, some elegant design choices help make this weapon superior to the Death Star.

This laser was fitted onto a capital ship instead of a giant space station. This reduced its overall potency, as the Silencer Laser was designed to destroy enemy ships instead of planets. However, miniaturization made it easy to replicate, so the Sith had at one point entire fleets of Silencers at their disposal, allowing them to annihilate enemy fleets before anyone could mount an effective defense!

In fact, these special ships were not easily destroyed until confronted by the specialized technology and resources of the Eternal Empire.

Shawken Device

Most of the time, we associate the Death Star with the Empire thinking big. After all, destroying entire planets at a time is much grander in scale than trying to invade and occupy those planets. The Shawken Device, though, provides an argument that the Empire wasn't thinking big enough. Why destroy planets when you can destroy the entire universe instead?

This was a doomsday weapon developed by an unknown scientist from the planet Shawken. The basic idea behind it was to create a new Big Bang, destroying the entire universe and replacing it with something new. Theoretically, this would work by destroying the scientist's planet of Shawken and propelling the fragments through hyperspace until they had destroyed all planets in the galaxy. Thankfully, this weapon was never used, as it would mean the end of the galaxy as we know it!

Shadow Arsensal

The Shadow Arsenal represents another one of those rare superweapons developed by the Old Republic. The logic behind this particular superweapon was that it would function like nuclear deterrent does on Earth. The Republic clearly thought no one would ever attack them if they had an unstoppable weapon.

This weapon design was quite simple: the “Shadow Arsenal” itself referred to a huge stockpile of missiles, each one powerful enough to shatter the continents on a planet. The ace in the hole, though, is that the Old Republic put a cloaking device on every single missile. This meant no one could see the missiles coming until it was way too late. The weapon was ultimately never fully tested, and it was destroyed before it could be abused by either side in the war.

Hyperspace Nullifier

Republic Ships in Hyperspace in The Clone Wars

When you think “deadlier than the Death Star,” chances are that you're thinking about raw destructive capability. And it's true that most of the weapons on this list focus on killing as many people as possible in a short amount of time. The Hyperspace Nullifer, though, is a way of making entire systems die as slowly and cruelly as possible.

With a name like that, you may have guessed: the Hyperspace Nullifer prevents anyone from traveling into or out of a system via hyperspace, effectively cutting the system off from the galaxy. Remember how it was life or death on Naboo when they were facing a blockade that would kill all of their people because no resources could be brought in? The nullifier allows users to block any system of their choice. Thankfully, Han Solo helped destroy this weapon before it could terrorize the whole galaxy.

Darksaber

Tiya Sircar as Sabine Wren with Darksaber in Star Wars Rebels

In the Kevin J. Anderson novel of the same name, we are introduced to the Darksaber. One good way of understanding this superweapon is that it's like Death Star 3.0. When an evil Hutt crime lord decides he wants this destructive power for himself, an Imperial weapons designer decides to make the Death Star more frighteningly efficient than ever.

In the novel, Durga the Hutt only wants the superweapon part, so the Darksaber does not have things like flight hangars and quarters for Imperial troops. With the extra space, the designer, Bevel Lemelisk, was able to move the focusing eye of the laser. The final result? A more powerful laser that can actually be fired more often.

This superweapon met its end while trying to evade New Republic Forces in an asteroid field, but if it was in more competent hands, there may have been no stopping this weapon.

Darkstaff

Most of the items on this list are really large— things like space stations, massive fleets, and so on. The Darkstaff is small enough to be wielded by a single individual, and it is powered by potent Sith magic. As a result, it feeds off the Force and provides whoever holds it with fantastic and dangerous powers.

This thing can transform people into terrible monsters such as Sithspawn. It can generate things like hyperspace wormholes, which are good for a quick escape or simply stranding your enemies in the middle of nowhere. It can even generate wormholes through time, transporting people into the future.

Basically, this is an evil artifact that even has its own mind and personality, and if it was ever wielded by someone with a strong enough mind, they could rule all of space and time!

The Force

In the very first Star Wars movie, Darth Vader chides the assembled Imperials by telling them that “the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of The Force.” The Imperials seem pretty skeptical, which is what leads to Vader Force-choking Admiral Motti. However, time (and the Extended Universe) has basically proven Vader is correct.

We've seen characters, like Bastila Shan, who were skilled in Battle Meditation, which lets the Force user greatly influence battles and wars in their favor. We've seen Sith “thought bombs” that turned the dark side of the Force into a means to create lethal explosions capable of destroying all life on a planet. We've even seen Sith warriors, like Darth Nihilus, who could suck the life out of an entire planet, all on their own. It seems there's no limit to the destructive influence of the Force!

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